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25 brilliant examples of Facebook brand pages

I love to see brands generating innovative, engaging and creative advertising online. Yet, I’m always surprised at how little effort companies put into Facebook from a creative perspective, especially given the noise they make about using the platform and the levels of engagement often put in.

Arguably, Facebook does have a static format that needs changing, but it’s not that difficult – or expensive – to come up with some great landing page manipulation through Facebook Markup Language (FBML)... And some brands are taking advantage of this, to great effect.

Here, I’ve skimmed through a few lists of top global brands and have picked 25 of the best. It’s worth noting that they’ve all created unique tabs within their company pages and these are the fixed landing points for the user, rather than the standard Facebook Wall.

A lot of them are also American, which I also think indicates the current differences in transatlantic-Facebook adoption. But hopefully they’ll all give some inspiration to anyone suffering a creative block.

Best Buy engages in a simple F-commerce set up, where users can directly browse categories of products and make online purchases. The page also encourages the user to share content and products with those they know.

Heinz has specifically created a Facebook page for one of its most iconic products, ketchup. On the page, the design allows the likes of direct user interaction and the showcase of product development.

Due to its wide range of cars, Honda has opted for its official corporate page to redirect users to model-specific fan pages. There's also a large piece of creative which is focused around an ongoing advertising campaign.

Opting to promote its affiliation with "technology and creativity", Intel is currently using Facebook to push an ongoing global competition, although arguably, it's not particularly pleasing visually, at least it's an admirable attempt to make use of the available resources.

Continuing in the vein of its World Cup "Write the Future" campaign, Nike's football division is using its page to promote its current promotional competition which actually leverages Facebook itself via user interaction.

Pepsi is currently choosing to use its Facebook landing page to promote its ongoing corporate responsibility programme. This is fairly logical, as it both encourages user engagement, provides information and also allows different advertising campaigns to be run globally (online and offline) without impacting its Facebook management by having to ensure creative consistency.

Opting for the crowd-sourcing approach, Samsung's USA page is relying upon users to submit images or videos, or rate them, in order to build an online library. Users are rewarded for engagement with the chance to win electrical goods.

Proving that even luxury brands have the ability to engage on Facebook, Tiffany's landing page has a data capture mechanism through an invitation to join a mailing list, which sits alongside a showcase of its current season product range.

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Comments (114)

I esecially like Red Bull and Tiny Taste Team - simple, yet engaging. I'm going to show this to my boss for inspiration and maybe we can propose this idea to our clients who are still reluctant to advertise in Facebook.

The lendwithcare Facebook page is another good one to have a look at. They have intergrated the website into their Facebook tabs very nicely! http://www.facebook.com/pages/lendwithcareorg/127902410554114

Leaving Coca Cola off the list? I think that is one of the best examples, it is certainly my go-to choice. At the least it beats Abercrombie and Fitch!

Other than that, a good selection of choices, and interesting the different ways people put emphasis on the calls to action.

over 7 years ago

RaynaNyc

Really admire what Victoria's Secret does for PINK (you can find it at facebook/vspink). Regularly updated, filled with interactive features, events, and cross promotes w/all of their digital and brick&mortar touchpoints. They have successfully connected with their audience in my opinion judging by the participation that regularly occurs there.

I agree with @RaynaNyc, Victoria secret is doing tons of good stuff, in my defense I have sisters...
Also just wanted to let you know that the Windows link goes to the previous toyota page.
And I agree with @fabrice it would be interesting to see the top 25 list of small to medium businesses doing well on facebook. Although, if they are small to medium how would we find them?

over 7 years ago

Anonymous

coming from the media side of digital, numbers are my thing. so whilst I appreciate that these are awesome visually and creatively. I'm also very interested to find out how effective they were, is there any data on the number of customers who interacted? business increase for the companies in question etc?

over 7 years ago

Hugo Pickering

Perfect timing as I was after a list of some notable Facebook pages (note that I wouldn't say all of these are brilliant examples, but they certainly show what is possible). Creatives are getting better at using limited screen real estate on third party sites but need to realise they are not in total control, so examples such as BMW, Fox News or Red Bull actually stand out above the others when viewed on the page, mainly for their simplicity and succinctness of the message. Moral: Know your media.

over 7 years ago

Anonymous

It's good to see a UK charity (Oxfam) on the list too, up there with the big US brand names! Proving that you can do it in-house and without a big budget - and for a great cause!

over 7 years ago

Mike McGrail, Digital Marketing Consultant at Standard Life

Thanks for pulling this together! I would expect a rush of people dropping their FB page links in here.

over 7 years ago

Jenny Simpson, Head of Digital PR & Content at Stickyeyes

I agree that these are all great landing pages, but that's just the start with Facebook. I'm just as interested in what happens after you Like them.

Do they have a regular updates policy that ends up clogging up your newsfeed? Do they engage? Do they use Facebook as a customer service route? There aren't many companies doing it right on Facebook at the moment.

A large number of these will fall victim to Facebook's new rule about tab page width, which goes into effect on Monday. 520 pixels, max. Or is there a way you can buy your way out of this limitation? I don't know.

Jenny (just above me) is the first commenter to take the words out of my mouth.

I can't quite put my finger on what disturbs me about a bunch of companies staking flags in the ground of Facebook. While the content above is interesting and well designed, there's something funky about the current trend to put a website within a website.

While I think the examples shown here are worthy creative displays, I need to ask, "to what end?" There's something off-putting when corporations continue to act like corporations on a social and personal platform like Facebook. I haven't dug into the links above yet, but how many of the companies above respond to comments? How many engage with fans and don't just broadcast outward? (That last question doesn't mean how many of them crowd source their next idea.)

It's true that going to where the eyeballs are is good strategy. But once there, be prepared to join the conversation. It's not difficult to point to Old Spice as a shining example of what a little true engagement can garner.

Great list, thank you. I'd love to see some examples of B2B companies using Facebook successfully, as well. Any good examples come to mind?

over 7 years ago

BOB

Why are these brilliant?

They're all examples of clients listening to ad agencies and turning a social network into traditional media space. All push and promotion. If any of these brands continue in this vein. They will fail, and fail quickly.

The way these guys should use Facebook is to create a conversation with their (and here's the key) 'audience' - not customer but audience. Or peers. Open a dialogue, gain trust, build meaningful relationships and ultimately, loyalty in their brands.

I fear that Facebook isn't the right place anyway. To build meaningful relationships requires active audience members. Facebook is a passive couch potato world of holiday snaps, 'oohh look at my baby now' shots and basic human drivel.

Don't worry - there's a lot of new social network development underway and some BIG players will launch something soon to really relate to how human 'social' behavior works...

Who cares if you've got 30,000 friends in Facebook - it's impossible to keep intouch with more that 150 in reality and probably most of us have 5 -10 real 'friends'

I agree with BOB to some extent. Some of these pages are running the risk of not looking like Facebook, which may cause a disconnect with their users. Pages like the Red Bull one do it quite well though, with enough customisation but making use and even emphasising Facebooks interface.

However, the crucial comment is the one from Mary H Ruth above. Facebook has a NEW WIDTH LIMIT OF 520PX (sorry had to write it in bold in case people miss it. This means that many of these pages will be back to the drawing board. So if they were godd examples, they aren't now!

Yes, these are pretty, but most look like standard landing pages. I wonder how they perform in the medium. I'm curious about the response results from these. Do you have this information? I'd be interested in seeing a "25 Brilliant Top Performing Facebook Fan/Brand Pages" article.

over 7 years ago

Becca

Any suggestions on how a small business with limited budget can create an engaging screen such as these? Not too familiar with FBML but staff has some html skills. Are these type of screens pretty easy to create?

over 7 years ago

Sandrine

I'd love to see a similar article but for B2B or professional services, not B2C... and not necessarily from "big" companies that have large teams managing their marketing efforts.

I'm sure there must be some great FB pages of midsize consultants/lawyers/advertising companies or any regular B2B organisations somewhere...

Diverse collection of pages - it would be interesting to see the Facebook pages side by side with the company's website so that we could compare/contrast their branding & marketing strategies. I must admit, I don't really understand the appeal of the corporate site within the Facebook shell. Is it just the contests and games that bring people to these pages? Or, can each of these pages become ad-hoc user groups for the projects featured?

I take pains to differeniate static FBML from FB apps, which are great as long as fans grant permission. Static FBML is ideal for brand-focused engagement that doesn't need permission & for extending its engagement touch-points to non-FB visitors too - think FB usernames. Consider this example (pre-520px limit) from a Fortune 500 health care provider offering segmented engagement and more than the standard LIKE US crap before leading users to their corporate website: http://www.facebook.com/DaVitaKidneyCare.

Very cool. I already knew about some of these - glad to see some others make the cut. Have to agree with VictoriaSecret. They've been doing it right for a while.
For Becca - there are some companies out there designing for the small business.

over 7 years ago

marina drocourt

Very Good list, thks for sharing :)
I also like a lot Louis Vuitton. Victoria's secret deserves also a special metntion: its Pink Facebook page is a good example of branding, content for the consumer, pushing their product and social media channels, promoting sweepstakes...

It's no surprise to me that Red Bull is the most mentioned page here. They've been way ahead on the social media game for years. They are definitely one of the best companies at managing and controlling their brand image.

I'm siding with commenters [is that a word?] Jenny, Tim and Bob and question the use of facebook by these examples.

Why not have this 'promotional' content on its own designated domain name [not the corporate domain] and leave facebook for what facebook is supposed to be. A facebook page ia supposed to be part of your web presence, not your website.

The Fox, Red Bull and BMW pages seem to be there just to increase the numbers of people who 'like' them - a questionable objective in my opinion. Other than clicking on 'like' will users really engage with these organizations any more than they already do?

Am I also be pedantic pointing out that these organizations have significant websites hosted on a domain over which they have [virtually] no control - with all the legal and security issues associated with that scenario - not to mention on-page ads which could well be for competitors?

These are some interesting examples but I would like to see some B2B examples as well. Good to see the token charity one - with Oxfam

over 7 years ago

Jenny Simpson, Head of Digital PR & Content at Stickyeyes

Was just discussing this on Twitter and I made the flippant comment that the current mainstream approach to Facebook is rather similar to the 1997 web dev methodology - too simplistic.

A few months ago one of the record companies suddenly woke up to marketing on Twitter and I was deluged with spam from bands I had "liked". It wasn't relevent stuff, esp as most of the bands I have have long since stopped recording. They were just saying things for the sake of it.

Alan Ch makes an interesting point about the main corporate sites being too restrictive and that's almost certainly one of the reasons why a lot of cash is being spewed onto FB by the big corporations.

This is a nice list of good looking Facebook pages, a nice designed page can be great. A few of my clients have met with Facebook directly recently and they have discussed using Facebook for selling straight to their websites. At the moment this is free but I think we will see Facebook set this facility up for nice big brands and then start charging accordingly and to be honest I don't see nothing wrong with that.

I have built a Twitter management application called www.tweasier.com and when I built a Facebook page for it, I tended to use the standard design but keep it fresh with interesting content and good relevant touch points to the other channels we use.

This is a nice list of good looking Facebook pages, a nice designed page can be great. A few of my clients have met with Facebook directly recently and they have discussed using Facebook for selling straight to their websites. At the moment this is free but I think we will see Facebook set this facility up for nice big brands and then start charging accordingly and to be honest I don't see nothing wrong with that.

I have built a Twitter management application called http://tweasier.com/ and when I built a Facebook page for it, I tended to use the standard design but keep it fresh with interesting content and good relevant touch points to the other channels we use.

@Kristian: there are many restrictions in managing a FB page, that lead to poor interaction level on the landing page. The purpose of this landing page is to convert visitor into fan. Interaction can only happen after that small click.

The title here should be "25 brilliant landing pages on Facebook". The question is not about interaction.

Seen a number of these now - yet once again another list of big corporates supposedly doing good stuff on f/book with big budgets. Yet nothing that says why this is so good on facebook, and how they are really using social media. These examples are just web pages repurposed to facebook. Sorry

over 7 years ago

andrew tobert

I'm a big fan of facebook.com/qualityfrenchwines

It uses social media in the way that its supposed to - i.e. stuff people can share, and only softly promotes its offers via news of promotions etc.

I enjoyed reading this.. but, here is a thought: We all know these brands and yes, they have the resources to do it with a bang and be effective. Why not try featuring lessor knowns or mom and pop's that are using FB effectively. That would make for a more meaningful article and give smaller businesses inspiration. I could care less if McDonalds or Microsoft has a kick butt FB page.. But, Sam's Donut Shop on Main Street USA might be doing the same thing but better on a budget thats a small fraction of a big box. That's inspiring!

A lot of them look like the website they would have liked to have created but the chairman wouldn't let them do it on the corporate site.

There is one big advantage of using facebook, it provides a functionality that most people already use and understand. No need to waste too much time explaining stuff. A familairity heuristic if you like.

@Cori, @Sandrine, @Lisa Barnett :: I'm with you all. B2C is nice, but where are all the B2B players? I certainly understand the FB is not much on B2B, but come on. There have to be a few fan pages out there worth mentioning, no?

I feel a bit bar humbug saying this but there's not THAT much creative stuff here? You could argue that it's all been done but then Old Spice, for example, come up with a really innovative way of using old sh*t. All I'm saying is that the tech/content doesn't have to be mind blowing but its execution must be. Im a little underwhelmed with this list... I'm also waiting for Toyota to announce a recall on its page :)

Love these examples!
This article (link below) talks about how Facebook pages are actually starting to overtake websites for some big brands. Interestingly, Facebook is quoted as advising brands to focus on simple status updates rather than complex apps. Not sure how good that advice is having looked at some of these!
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=145502

I am so glad you did this peice. I totaly agree with you, it is surprising how many big name compaines have a crappy FaceBook fan page... I guess it's still a new thing, in terms of on-line marketing, but it's been around long enough for the marketing world to see the niche and offer the services (I know we do), so I guess the client (small and big companies alike) need to see the added value in having a custom sidebar, custom landing pages and fun, interactive fan pages... I'm sure it won't be long before we start to see this more and more...

over 7 years ago

James Fell

Please accept my apologies if they have been raised within the comments above but two other great ones are Threadless and iTunes Festival (UK)

Great resources as well as examples. If you are looking for a quick way of taking your PSD design to integrate to Facebook we have developed some cool features that let you just name your layer and automatically connect to Facebook for Like/Comments et al...Check out the example at:

Our company is called Fanbooster and we can brand pages using a new widget center and I can say that this is brand new to the UK so even the great 25 brands that are posted above will change with the wdget center.

We are not a media agency but we want to work with agencies to promote our tool.

In future you will see that Facebook pages today are far more engaging and effective and you MUST become a fan by clicking on like before you can see any content. This means that as a CRM capture FB will be a major player (if it is not already) to a company's SM strategy

thanks for a great post, but I agree with some of the comments here, they are just great landing pages.

I think there is a lot to be said for the engadment side of facebook...i really think thats where the advantage is for businesses...being able to speak to so many customers so quickly and easily.

Pizza Express is one of the best examples I've seen.

over 7 years ago

andres gutierrez

thanks!!! perfecto!

do you have more investigations like this?

very good job

over 7 years ago

Laura Thistlethwaite, Marketing Manager at 1st Property Lawyers

Really interesting thread. I guess the key thing here is getting the conversaiton going. I went to a presentation the other week, and beads direct a smaller company are doing a great job - in fact, the users are generating most of the content with little input.

Would be interested to see how service providers use facebook if anyone has any examples? Especially where the product is intangible...

Excellent themes. But I also agree with the others who first commented here... most of it is just promotional themes. Anyways, I think they are still quite unique in their own special way and as usual it will be convincing to Facebook users.

I think that these style facebook ads are tacky. What happened to the simple profile image and a good description. I would not "like" any of these pages. Although they do contain good conversion methods.

Thanks for posting this. My question is a simple one. How do these Brands measure success? These guys get no statistics from facebook as to how many eyeballs are viewing their microsites. Is their metric simply “friends”.

Also, I understand that they
are appealing to an audience, but surely control is important right? You are at
the mercy of facebook (and they always have outages). Do these guys also have
issues with copyright? Facebook owns everything they upload.

Seems it is more than just a few photos on a page. These guys are now promoting these facebook pages in their big budget campaigns...

Sorry Jake, I also agree with some of the comments above. Calling these examples "brilliant" is the same as judging a company's digital marketing by their banners. Facebook is about interaction and communication.

Do you guys allow to publish copy of your posts in different languages with bad comments for brands that you mentioned? See here, there is no Srarbucks office in Poland according to that guy, he didn't even checked but criticized them:

Very well written posts, I am sure you would have accomplished this post after numerous research in the industry. Thank you mate for sharing.

over 6 years ago

Lara Booth

In response to a couple of comments made - 'why do companies want to be 'liked' and will they only push info back at us?'. There is technology out there now to allow companies to use FB and twitter as an additional customer service channel. If for example you have a bad flight and post a negative comment on your fb page then that airline could pick up that comment and respond (offer a discount voucher for a future flight etc) but only if you are connected to that airline in the first place. So you would need to have 'liked' them at some point or officially joined that airlines fb page. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise have a great Social Engagement solution to help companies do just this sort of thing.

Nice post....When I read this post it reminded me of my class mate. He always kept talking about this. I will forward this URL link to him. I am very sure he will love to read it. Thanks for sharing. You are bookmarked!

I understand the complaints about, why build a website within a website, but Facebook has become too big to be ignored. A lot of people are on there every day, almost addicted to it.

Since FBML phased out, I think we'll see more different things being tried out, but I'd say most of these examples are a good start. We'll have to see what kind of marketing strategies evolve out of using social space for marketing and branding.

over 6 years ago

stacy

nice list, BUT... It would be nice to see a list that is not a global company and doesn't have a marketing budget of 2.5 million dollars a quarter. What about the mom and pops? Something a little more realistic might be helpful.

Two of my favourite facebook brand pages are ASOS - which does good competitions but still needs to work on some other bits (like T & Cs), they also have got around the https problem that many seem to have.

And parkrun - which is a proper facebook community, no flashy pages but really good engagement and the child pages (for each event) are great because the event teams make them all slightly different. A good example of a small organisation getting it right.

Some other good ones are ASICS AYAMi and Londonist which have just the right amount of updates to keep you interested without spamming.

over 6 years ago

Seb Christophers

Thank you for these examples!

Do you have any data indicating the top brands used by people aged 35 and above on facebook?

Interesting to note that they're all using custom landing tabs. Without them, it's just impossible to make any kind of quick impact on the first time visitor - you'd think Facebook would want to address that in their ongoing drive for monetisation!

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